Darby to face former coach

Wednesday

Aug 31, 2011 at 12:01 AMAug 31, 2011 at 7:10 PM

The Hilliard Darby High School girls soccer team had extra incentive to beat host Worthington Christian in its season opener on Aug. 23, as first-year coach Sarah Wiechman had been part of the Warriors' coaching staff the past seven years, including head coach the past two seasons.

The Hilliard Darby High School girls soccer team had extra incentive to beat host Worthington Christian in its season opener on Aug. 23, as first-year coach Sarah Wiechman had been part of the Warriors' coaching staff the past seven years, including head coach the past two seasons.

The Panthers, who defeated Worthington Christian 3-0, now have an opportunity to beat their former coach.

On Tuesday, Sept. 6, Darby will play an OCC-Central Division game at Central Crossing, which is coached by Amy Williams, who resigned as Darby coach after last season in order to return to coach the Comets.

Williams, the former Amy Martin who got married during the offseason, led Central Crossing to a 26-39-2 record in four seasons before leaving to coach Darby in 2009 after the South-Western City Schools cut fall sports that year following a failed levy.

In two seasons at Darby, Williams compiled a 9-24-2 record. Williams, who teaches special education at Central Crossing, resigned from Darby shortly after leading the Panthers to a 5-10-2 record last year.

"We're all really excited about this game," junior defender Ashleigh Riddle said. "We want to show (Williams) our potential and how much we've improved."

The Comets finished 0-17 last year, but they returned 10 letterwinners, not including goalkeeper Clarissa Davis, who is a move-in from Groveport.

Senior defender Kelsey Demjan could not play in Darby's 4-1 loss at DeSales on Aug. 25 after injuring an ankle during the victory over Worthington Christian.

Senior defender Tyler Kohli also played in the midfield against DeSales, but Wiechman lauded the job that Anne Mazuca and Sam Turner did filling in on defense against the Stallions.

"We're going to focus on improving our attacking this week because we've established our defense," Wiechman said. "Now we need to work on creating more scoring chances."

Wiechman said it was strange roaming the visitors' sideline at Worthington Christian for the first time. Against the Warriors, Ellen Ransome had two goals, Emily Church scored one and Hoferkamp had five saves.

"It was definitely weird because I coached there for seven years," Wiechman said. "I definitely wanted to win that game, but I also wanted to keep it respectful the whole time."

•The Darby boys team looked impressive during its first week of the regular season, routing Delaware 7-1 on Aug. 23 and defeating Reynoldsburg 3-0 on Aug. 25.

Against Delaware, Johnny Antos, Nate Kohl and Ryan Kasperzach each scored two goals. Gage Toy had two goals and Jacob Atkinson scored one against Reynoldsburg.

"Reynoldsburg is extremely good, fast and physical," coach John Ulry said. "We fought toe-to-toe with them and wore them down with our fitness. The boys are trusting each other and playing for each other. Chris Johnson is playing tremendous defense. And our freshman, Ryan Kasperzach, had two goals and three assists in two games."

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